tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 01 01:46:15 1994
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-ghach count
- From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
- Subject: -ghach count
- Date: Tue, 1 Feb 94 14:41:50 EST
charghwI'vo':
In our count of -ghach ratios, I offer that my most recent translation
of the Gettisburg Address (which still needs work) had 102 words, one of
which used {-ghach}, and IT was a MISTAKE. Ironically, I wanted "our intent
is good." The irony is that "intent" was the word I was looking for when I
sought to translate my name, "Will" into Klingon, so I've been through this
one before. I see "Will" as future tense of "to be", which REALLY is a
statement of intent, not of prescience. When I failed to satisfy that goal, I
fell back to "William, the Conquerer", hence {charghwI'}.
My error was {Hechghachmaj QaQ}, which we now know is unlikely to be
justifiable since it involves a nominalized verb stem. It was written before
Proechel's article in HolQeD. So now I look at the phrase I wanted to convey,
"Our intent is good" and return to my frustration that Klingon has no
adverbial word or suffix to convey "well" as in "to do something well". There
is no noun for "good", so I can't say, {[good] wIchenmoH WIneH...} without
yet another nominalization. Do I need one here?
No. I go back to what I interpret Lincoln to have been thinking at that
point in the speech. I return to {yotlh wIpotlhchoHmoH wIneH, 'ach mapaSqu'.
rIn Qu'vam. maHvaD Qu'vam rInmoHta' SuvwI'pu' yoH.} Or something like that.
For those looking up the words, I took the liberty of using {paS}=[be late]
from CK, which is not in your TKD unless you have annotated it.
At least it can be said that I practice what I preach.
On another topic, could others listen to CK again? It was reported here
that the word for "be expensive" was {waH}. When I listened to it, I thought
it sounded more like {wagh}. It is not that I like to challenge others'
interpretations. I had originally thought the word for cheap was {quH}, but
when it was reported as {qutlh}, I listened again and agreed. While the
language is quite phonetic, some of the sounds do resemble each other
closely.
charghwI'